Using "Old" Technology-Any body still use these?

[misshathaway]

I thought about this and determined I kind of failed at keep old technology around.

Wish I had. Before I moved I had every single tech gadget and computer I ever owned going back to Mac Iici. Storage back to 20MB SCSI, modems galore, old school cell phones, ebook readers. It was a lot of work to make sure there was no recoverable data on anything before bringing it to recycle. Old tech does not appreciate - at least mine didn't.

I'm not accumulating any more, so far. But if I do, as soon as something is no longer needed, out it goes.

 

[JoeWras]

Some day, when I have time to waste, I'd love to try to surf the web on my 1986 PC that I still have ... and still works. It has a 2400 modem.

I have to find some modem simulator, or make my own to hook it up.

Then I have to find a DOS text browser.

It might be fun, but useless, experiment.

 

[ERD50]

Some day, when I have time to waste, I'd love to try to surf the web on my 1986 PC that I still have ... and still works. It has a 2400 modem.

I have to find some modem simulator, or make my own to hook it up.

Then I have to find a DOS text browser.

It might be fun, but useless, experiment.

I mentioned earlier that I have a 3-Com "Audry" "internet appliance". It was a gift to my Mom, back in...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Com_Audrey

wiki says the year 2000.

It still works but I don't have a dial-up connection anymore, and to get to Ethernet required a special, USB-to-Ethernet adapter, so I can't do much with it.

It was actually really advanced in many ways, and in some ways far easier to use than today's powerful computers. But the flaws made it unusable in practice. 3-com discontinued them and refunded the money, and didn't want them back. So I still have it.

Pros (and remember, this is the year 2000). Most people were on dial up, you could schedule it to wake up, download the content of a bunch of web sites, it would keep them in memory, and then you could read them off-line at your leisure, by selecting each sites "channel" with a knob, like changing channels on an old TV. Of course they would not be interactive at that point, but you could have the weather, news, stocks, updates when you want, and not tie up your phone line. It would dial in and then hang up when they loaded. You could get back on-line if you wanted some interaction.

Email would flash a light when new emails arrived (it would check, based on your schedule). The stylus was a light pipe, and you put it in a holder which coupled to the light source. And you could just write on the screen to reply to the email, far easier than many email apps today. I think you could record a voice message too, not sure? And a wireless keyboard.

Cons: OMG. We bought the printer, but printing was nothing but a screen dump, no options to it at all. With that small screen, even a short email would take up about 3 screens. And some emails got double line spacing, making it even worse. Print, scroll one page, print, scroll, print. It would take several minutes.

Worse, it did not recognize html formatted emails. I don't mean it couldn't display them properly, it just didn't recognize them - they were missing in action! IIRC, they didn't even show up in the subject line, maybe just the content was blank, but I actually think the entire email was non-existent, you didn't even know it was received. Even in the year 2000, a fair % of emails had html content.

Those two things were deal breakers. A shame, because it actually was a nice device in many ways.

Anyone know of a free dial up service I could use to test this out?

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

Some day, when I have time to waste, I'd love to try to surf the web on my 1986 PC that I still have ... and still works. It has a 2400 modem.

I have to find some modem simulator, or make my own to hook it up.

Then I have to find a DOS text browser.

It might be fun, but useless, experiment.

You would not get very far.

Last year, I resurrected an old dual-core PC to run Win 2000. I needed that, because I was going to run some old engineering software that I had.

Then, while using it, I needed to look up some technical info, and tried to surf the Web on this PC. Nope! The browser could not understand the modern Web language, and newer browsers would not install on the Win 2K.

My old familiar technical software still worked great, and brought me back to my old productive years. Almost made me want to go back to work.

 

[NW-Bound]

Then, I discovered that these older engineering programs still ran under the newer Win XP. I could then run them on a Win XP virtual machine that was installed under Win 7.

There's a way to run XP under Win 10, but I like Win 7 much better.

 

[JoeWras]

You would not get very far.

Last year, I resurrected an old dual-core PC to run Win 2000. I needed that, because I was going to run some old engineering software that I had.

Then, while using it, I needed to look up some technical info, and tried to surf the Web on this PC. Nope! The browser could not understand the modern Web language, and newer browsers would not install on the Win 2K.

My old familiar technical software still worked great, and brought me back to my old productive years. Almost made me want to go back to work.

After I typed in that, I drove to church, and maybe some enlightenment hit me or something. I'm thinking: "Joe, you'd have to install a TCP/IP stack for starters. Ready to do that on your 1986 PC?"

So, uh, yeah. Hmmm. Maybe I can set up some serial link to another PC that just mirrors to the old PC using Putty, or something. I just want to make that old tech do something new-ish. Just gotta find the time to blow.

 

[mountainsoft]

I kind of stopped following new gadgets several years ago. Most of the "old tech" you guys are mentioning is new to me. I haven't even heard of a "tile" whatever that is.

I finally sold or gave away most of my old electronics a couple years ago. I had been hanging on to my Interact Model 1 computer since I was in high school and realized I was never going to do anything with it. So I sold it last year.

I sold my old 1976 Rabbit in March 2018 for $3500. After spending a year restoring it, I decided I wasn't going to drive it anymore and didn't want it just sitting around taking up space and collecting dust. So I got rid of the car and all the of the spare parts I had been collecting for 30+ years.

I still have a couple VCR's and a cassette deck in our attic that I keep for the rare times I need to digitize some old tapes. Every time I think about finally getting rid of them, someone asks me to transfer a tape for them.

I have a box of little electronic gadgets I built when I was a teenager. Nothing fancy, just little things that make different noises and stuff, including one with a speech synthesizer chip. I haven't looked at those in years.

I was actually just thinking I need to purge some of my old electronics again. I hate hanging on to stuff that I'm not using, whether that's electronics, clothes, or tools. It is such a weight lifted to get rid of stuff that is just taking up space.

 

[MRG]

DW has a 1978 era Bang and Olufsen turntable, amp, speakers and hundreds of LP. She hasn't listened to them in years, yet when the turntable broke, from moving, it had to be replaced.[emoji849]

 

[Kimo]

I still use a "flip" phone. I did buy a smartphone years ago and returned it 1 day later. This is funny, I was speaking to a contractor and he said he would send something to my phone. I told him I still use a flip phone and he said, oh, you are old school, I will email you. Also, a couple years ago I was on the Verizon web site and the flip phone was their top seller in terms of quantity, not price.

 

[Souschef]

I still use a "flip" phone. I did buy a smartphone years ago and returned it 1 day later. This is funny, I was speaking to a contractor and he said he would send something to my phone. I told him I still use a flip phone and he said, oh, you are old school, I will email you. Also, a couple years ago I was on the Verizon web site and the flip phone was their top seller in terms of quantity, not price.

They are fine for phone calls. I got tired of sending texts where I had to push the ABC button to get a "C". I bought an inexpensive smartphone from Tracfone and am happy with it.

 

[Kimo]

I completely understand, thanks for the information, I will look into it.


Have a great evening.

 

[morriss003]

I was an early adopter of computer tech, and I had a business that sold computers and accessories. For a long time I tried to keep some of the really old stuff, but I finally gave it up. I still have an original baby Mac, and a Sanyo monitor that is about 35 years old.

 

[albundyz]

I still have a VHS player and VHS tapes.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I don't 'use' these anymore but I got 'em: Sol-20 8080 computer and Atari XL, both with a lot of documentation. Until last Dec, I still used an HP calculator. Still got a couple of slide rules, including a functioning tie-tack from my professional society eons ago. I even have a few ties. Does anyone remember wearing a tie?

 

[Car-Guy]

Still have a Betamax and 30 or 40 Beta tapes, a VIC 20 and several game cartridges, an 8 track player and about a dozen tapes, an Atari and 6 or 7 game cartridges and everything still works. (well they did the last time I checked)


Plus lots of old hand held calculators. (still have a slide rule too)

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I don't 'use' these anymore but I got 'em: Sol-20 8080 computer and Atari XL, both with a lot of documentation. Until last Dec, I still used an HP calculator. Still got a couple of slide rules, including a functioning tie-tack from my professional society eons ago. I even have a few ties. Does anyone remember wearing a tie?

Until the day I retired in 2017 I used my venerable old HP 11C RPN calculator. Once in a while one of the young-uns would pick it up off my desk during a discussion to crunch a quick number and it was amusing to see the look of bemusement and frustration on their face. I would gladly try to explain how to use it and tell them how it was much more efficient than a "standard" calculator, but they would glaze over and pull out their iphone.

I have a box of ties somewhere in my closet which are only for funerals now, I guess. I did sell my old Atari stuff 25 years ago - on CompuServe! I think I got a fair amount of money for it, too.

 

[NoMoreJob]

My wife still uses her old iPod in our master bath to listen to Pandora on a bluetooth speaker there. It also retrieves her email and texts so when sitting at her vanity she is both entertained and connected without having to carry her phone in.

 

[Out of Steam]

Anyone have one of those aftermarket stations/docks for their ipod classic?

Have a Sony dock with the old 30-pin plug that we still use with an adapter for the newer iPhone plug. I’ve changed the batteries inside once; had a shop make up the pack of NiMH cells to match the old.

 

[Montecfo]

Until the day I retired in 2017 I used my venerable old HP 11C RPN calculator. Once in a while one of the young-uns would pick it up off my desk during a discussion to crunch a quick number and it was amusing to see the look of bemusement and frustration on their face. I would gladly try to explain how to use it and tell them how it was much more efficient than a "standard" calculator, but they would glaze over and pull out their iphone.

I have a box of ties somewhere in my closet which are only for funerals now, I guess. I did sell my old Atari stuff 25 years ago - on CompuServe! I think I got a fair amount of money for it, too.

I have 2 HP 12-Cs which I continue to use. Similarly I've had people pick it up look at it and try and use it. I try and explain to them that it doesn't work the way they think and some folks just don't believe that. I guess they think a calculator should work the way they think it should work.

I even had a relatively new SVP of sales look at it in a meeting and then discreetly take a picture of it.

It's cool that just seems to do the job a lot better than anything else you might substitute for it, at least in my opinion.

 

[audreyh1]

Old technology- hah! I recently had an opportunity to try a stone-age spear thrower aka atlatl. I was impressed, and now I want one!

Quite impressed with what they were able to do with just Stone Age technology - they just had stones (mostly flint), bones and antlers/horns as tools.

We bought a beautiful flint blade knife with reindeer antler handle. Modern piece but traditional manufacture.

 

[NW-Bound]

Old technology- hah! I recently had an opportunity to try a stone-age spear thrower aka atlatl. I was impressed, and now I want one!

Are you still into butterflies? You want to get them with the flint-tipped spear?

 

[audreyh1]

Are you still into butterflies? You want to get them with the flint-tipped spear?

Ha ha!

 

[38Chevy454]

I still use both HP 11 scientific and HP 12 financial calculators all the time. Once you are used to the RPN it's much more efficient. I actually mess up using std calculators since I am so used to the HPs.

 

[Ronstar]

^very nice. One of my coworkers used several hp11’s over the course of many years. One would break down and he’d find more somewhere.

I used an 11 also and still use my old 48 at times. Still can handle rpn

 

[Chuckanut]

As I mentioned in another thread my exercise bike has no modern anything - no video screen, not programmed 'rides', no wifi, no motor, no pulse or heart monitor, no videos to watch, no place to conntect a headset, etc. It's just a big 40 pound flywheel driven by a chain attached to the pedals. The only adjustments are the seat, the handlebars and the tension.